Advances in technology have made portable telephone sets smaller and lighter, have made them able to store various kinds of data, and have made them portable enough to be carried in, for example, a pocket. On the other hand, this has created more opportunities for them to be lost through dropping or forgetting, or for them to be stolen by third persons. When a third person uses a portable telephone set that is thus lost or stolen, its legitimate owner may be billed and the various data stored in it may be misused. Therefore it is desirable to have a way to prevent the misuse of a portable telephone set that gets lost or stolen.
A dial lock function using a code number is known as a previous security function for portable telephone sets. That is, if a dial lock function is set with a code number, when this portable telephone set is to be used, one must release the dial lock function by inputting the code number, thus making it possible to prevent a third person who does not know this code number from making calls.
Means are known whereby if a portable telephone set is lost or stolen, the owner of the portable telephone set contacts a communications carrier's exchange station, etc. from a general telephone set and requests, using the portable telephone set's code number, that outgoing or incoming calls not be accepted, so that thereafter outgoing and incoming calls of the portable telephone set are not accepted at the exchange station that controls portable telephone set incoming and outgoing calls.
Means have also been proposed (for example, publication of unexamined patent application H7-193865 [1995]) whereby when the rightful owner of a lost or stolen portable telephone set contacts the communications carrier or exchange station, he arranges it so that calls originating from the portable telephone set are not accepted, and transmits remote control data to the portable telephone set, and the portable telephone set receives and recognizes this remote control data, then the various stored data is prohibited from being read, various data is erased, an alarm tone is generated, and notification is given concerning the location of the portable telephone set.
By having a memory, a portable telephone set can remember input-set data such as many telephone numbers and mail addresses. This creates the problem that when this portable telephone set is lost or stolen, the finder can make malicious calls that reference the stored content, even if the dial lock function is set. In this case, as stated above, this misuse can be avoided by contacting the communications carrier and performing control such as erasing the stored content of the stolen portable telephone set.
But when the lost or stolen portable telephone set comes back to its original owner, it is impossible to restore the various data that has already been erased. In that case, the various data must be input and set again. Or it could be restored by backing it up beforehand. In that case, the backup can be done by connection with a computer, but backing up cannot be done with the portable telephone set itself.
The purpose of this invention is to provide a maintenance service center and realize portable telephone set security functions and backup functions.